hey my name is mary and today we are going to talk about how to break into venture capital
particularly if you're a student now notably these series of videos that i'm shooting now about how
to get into metro capital or product management or other things that i went through the recruiting
process for are secondary to the foundational video i made which includes information generally
about networking how to break into small and big companies um general strategies and so i would i
will link that above for you to watch prior to watching this one but in this video we're going
to talk about the timeline for recruiting as well as common programs how to get into vcs that don't
even have programs as well as interview tips and if i was to do it again how would i break into
venture capital so if you're interested in that i hope you are keep watching okay so to begin with
let's just do a quick overview of venture capital it'll be super quick so essentially what vcs do
is they invest in startups and hope that they become big companies and lps or limited partners
such as schools give vcs money to invest in startups hoping that they become big companies
to make returns which then go back to lps as well as the people who made those investments that's
what they do and i would say there are four core things that vcs need to be able to do the first is
source companies so where are they the second is diligence so deciding that they're good companies
the third is winning the deal so having the entrepreneur want you to be on their journey with
them um as well as deal terms and then finally the operational side of actually helping your
founders and being useful now there are all sorts of vcs and they split across various things so
some are very small some are large and go across various jews as well as sectors as well as stages
that is another one of the major ways they split off so they split up geographically some vcs only
invest in the us others only in europe others across the globe and then by stage generally
people split into early stage funds as well as growth stage funds sometimes they do you know
across the board from like precede through pre-ipo um and then often people split by sectors as well
so whether that's uh you know crypto or fintech or healthcare or enterprise or consumer those are
all some major sectors that vcs will play some of or all of or i guess you have to at least
one um so that was a quick overview of what venture capital is and now we're going to go
into how you actually get into it okay so talking through the timeline of vc recruiting i would say
as a whole for internships they recruit in the fall and spring and for full-time opportunities
in your senior year they will recruit fall and spring it is after finance and usually on par with
tech but sometimes a little bit later than tech so one thing to kind of note is bc is a pretty
it's a pretty scary bet to say that this is the one thing that you want to do and not
recruit for other things because the timeline is later than some of the other major verticals
now while you are an undergrad i think some of the best ways to get involved in startups and
in particular venture is to do student-run vcs and so the most famous i think the the
two most popular programs for this are rough draft ventures by general catalyst as well as
dorm room fund there are also some vcs that hire like lots of scouts that are undergrads or lots
of stuff outside of students romulus capital is an example one that i've had friends go to
and then these programs will recruit during the fall usually and you'll be like a fellow or you'll
be part of that program for at least the whole year there are other programs that are targeted
towards students that will get you into the startup ecosystem and they're awesome but they're
not particularly allowing you the experience of investing themselves and a couple of those
programs would be sbb track which runs during the winter break as well as kp design and engineering
fellows which runs during the summer so again in those experiences you're not actually going to
quote unquote like be a vc and be in investing in companies actively but you will be more involved
with the startup ecosystem which is incredibly important if you want to have a job in venture
now in terms of internship and in particular looking at full-time opportunities at big vc
firms it is definitely less common of a route than in you know software engineering or product
management and things like that but here are the three programs that i have heard of the first
is bessemer bessemer is an early has an early stage focus primarily from what i know um and i'm
not sure i've actually never met anyone who's in their like analyst class but i've definitely seen
their application and i assume that because they are primarily early stage those analysts would
spend a lot of time sourcing or in other words you would really learn the skill of finding companies
networking and finding companies the second major program is insight this is one of the most
long established venture analyst programs insight primarily focuses on growth stage investing
their anna's classes from i think the past few years have been like approximately 30 so it's
like some tens of people that you can actually grow up within the industry which is very cool
and because they are growth stage investors you will focus both on sourcing as well as diligence
so sourcing is again finding the companies and diligence is you know doing financial modeling
and reading through their stats and teens and making calls and decisions
and recommendations on those companies and then finally general atlantic is even more growth stage
they have a class of analysts i'm not sure how big that class is but i do know that those analysts
focus on sourcing versus their associates which are not usually hired from undergrad focus on
diligence so you would be more focused on one than the other in this program okay so what about all
of the vcs who don't have formal internship programs now i just want to clarify that a
common misconception is that young people are not in venture capital or it's not good for them to be
in venture capital especially at top tier firms um i think this was true like 10 or however many
years ago but nowadays like i joined an awesome top tier vc firm out of undergrad and i have
lots of friends at other ones who did as well in fact of the i would say like top vc's i have seen
friends out of undergrad join like excel and andreessa horowitz and lightspeed and general
catalyst and you know like lots of awesome firms so it's not impossible as it was maybe like 10 15
years ago um it's actually becoming more and more common but you can't find them in a traditional
recruiting path as you can with other careers okay so for all of these other vc firms there are two
possibilities the first is they do have a formal program of some sort that you can join the second
is that they don't and i'm going to talk about in both cases so in case they do have a formal
internship program or a full-time opportunity program which by the way is fairly uncommon
the hardest job for you is going to be actually finding it so here are the three ways that i would
they hear the three things i would do to try and figure out if they have a program or not the first
is follow them on linkedin follow their email list because that is most likely where they're going
to be posting about opportunities the second thing is email your resume to their head of hr
or recruiting or someone at the firm who can send your resume to the head of hr or recruiting
because those are the people who are going to know if there's an internship program and they can keep
your resume on file and then finally again in your local community for your local entrepreneurship
clubs um or local entrepreneurship community like email lists and stuff i would definitely
sign up for those and read those every single time crazy enough that's actually how i found
the firm and the opportunity that i got if they do not have a formal internship program
or a full-time opportunity which by the way is the majority of these cases unfortunately vc
is very much about who you know and it's still a very like opaque recruiting process and so
people will just hear about opportunities for friends or they will recommend people
that they worked with before and things like that and so you really have to be in the know
so i have a strategy um that i'm about to walk you through that essentially is if i was a student
again and i was trying to get into an awesome vc firm out of undergrad this and i wasn't like
the you know super well connected already within the venture ecosystem this is what i would do
okay so the strategy that i would advise is to essentially become an expert so let's say
within the 90th percentile of all vcs in some topic pretty much does not matter what topic
so long as it's relevant to some vcs and send it off to a decision maker so that's probably
md's or partners at firms um in the best case they will actually be impressed and be able to hire you
otherwise in the second best case they will send you off his recommendation to someone that they
know that is actually hiring now philosophically why does this idea work well vcs do for sure come
in all shapes and sizes which is great but there are various archetypes and essentially
there's only one archetype that students out of undergrad or students generally can fall into
and that is they are hustlers so they are willing to work super hard to be super connected and to
find and source and diligence really well now the reason why that is pretty much the only archetype
that student vcs can be is because you are not qualified enough to be any of the other archetypes
you don't know a market's super well you don't have a ton of experience you're not super well
connected and so you actually philosophically kind of have to fall into this bucket
so what do i mean by this essentially i would pick a topic that is somewhat relevant to at least
to at least some vcs um you want it to be broad enough again that it's somewhat relevant but
narrow enough that you can actually get into the 90th percentile of knowledge so you can actually
be a knowledge expert and you are acknowledged as a knowledge expert in this topic now i have
some real world examples from literally people i know who got into venture great bc firms out of
undergrad in really hard circumstances as in like they were the first and they didn't have a formal
program and all those things those two examples are someone who was in the boston ecosystem and
was like number one at being well connected among student founders in boston that was their niche
and that proved their ability as a vc to get them this job i know someone else who was essentially
very well researched or they had done a lot of research into early stage india
companies and they had written case studies about a variety of india companies and now they work at
a generalist vc firm but specializing in india so these are two real world examples if i was
to do it again i would be like okay i'm going to be in the 90th percentile of understanding
tokenomics of major crypto companies and i'm going to post on twitter about it or
hey i'm going to write blog posts about my analysis of public robotics companies or hey
i'm going to become a somewhat of an expert in healthier companies based in san diego
and tell people about it and become somewhat well known for it that is probably the best way
to break in i know that's not a shoe-in and i know that's not um it's a lot of work but quite frankly
like i think that's the most effective strategy as a student who wants to break into venture nowadays
okay so what do you need to study to become a vc luckily you can pretty much study whatever
you want um vcs are not super like they don't use like at least most of them that i know don't use
like applicant tracking systems that only look for certain majors which is what a lot of other
fields do um with that being said i would say that people i know who are in venture tend to come from
either a finance background so maybe they studied economics or something like that or they come from
like a tech related background so maybe they started computer science or data science or
something like that in terms of extracurriculars i would say there are three things that you can do
the first is definitely please be involved with entrepreneurship programs and entrepreneurship
communities at your school or in your community generally that is so so important because that is
most of your job and if you don't like doing that then you probably won't like venture the second
thing is having a very specialized skill so for example if you happen to be really knowledgeable
about cryptography because it's something you that interests you you'd probably be pretty
useful to a crypto vc or if you know a lot about mechanical engineering maybe you'd be great for
people who focus on hardware and robotics um that is one category of extracurriculars that you can
work on if you're interested in this field the third i'm going to say with a grain of salt which
is it happens to be true that a lot of people i know who started companies um in undergrad or as
a student did end up in vc with that being said i want to caution against starting companies for the
sake of doing something else the first thing is starting a company for like a year or two does not
teach you just start a company for a year or two because you want to do something else
does not teach you how to be a founder it's wasting vc's monies by starting company for
year two for the sake of doing something else also does not put you in good favor with vcs so
i would definitely caution against this path but i'm also saying that this is like something that
i've observed so when it comes to the interview process it is definitely not standardized um the
way it is in software engineering or you know finance or consulting um every vc kind of does
their own thing they're technical to various degrees but here are some general things that
i would make sure you do the first is you need to be able to answer examples of ways in which
you have been involved with your local startup system or local entrepreneurship system if you
have examples of how you kept people together how you bring community how you you know find
people that's just like your job and as a vc and so that's very important especially early stage
um the second thing that i would make sure you have an answer to is a list of your let's say
top 3 to 10 companies private and possibly public as well that you think are interesting and why as
in would you invest in them and why and the most important part here is having a solid
understanding of the framework you're using to evaluate that investment so for example are you
thinking about the market size are you thinking about the management team are you thinking about
the product are you thinking about um how it's positioned in the market are you thinking about
its metrics are you thinking about you know their hiring strategy like things like that some
mix of all of that stuff tells the people that are interviewing you how you think about what makes a
good company or a good startup and that's super important now obviously if you're interviewing
with a vc that specializes in a certain category a certain geography a certain sector or a certain
stage i would curate that list for that geography sector stage finally if you're applying to a
growth stage firm i would expect that you're going to have to do some amount of financial
modeling as part of the interview now from what i've heard it's significantly less rigorous i
suppose than if you were to be purely recruiting investment banking private equity things like that
with that being said i actually do not have a background in that type of finance and so i can't
tell you what type of questions they would ask but i will get a friend who has done the banking
banking recruiting process for the banking equivalent of this video and i would just
watch that one when it comes out to find a lesser version of what you'll need to do for venture
one last thing if this recruiting process while you're a student didn't work out you can still
break into adventure from a variety of other times in your life i would say in the long run people
who are involved in the startup ecosystem there's some of a revolving door between i don't know
maybe you are a founder for 10 years and then you decide to become a vc or you were a founder for a
bit and you decide to become a vc like expert in residence and then you end up becoming vc and you
can go back to being a founder in other words like if you're in the startup system there's probably
a way in another short-term path or shorter term path that you can take to be in venture
if you don't go out of undergrad is work for example in banking or in consulting for two
years and then try and join a vc firm the reason there are lots of pros and cons to this i would
actually say one of the pros is that vcs are not usually great not usually fantastic at training
they're usually a job where you just do stuff and so these big programs like banking consulting that
have been training people for decades often are actually really good practice for some
of the work that you would do in venture but all that is just to say that there are other ways in
beyond being a student in fact it's probably hardest when you are a student so don't give
up if this is something you really want to do that is all again for the foundational video to watch
before this one where i just talk about recruiting generally um go watch that video for future videos
where i'm going to talk about other sectors such as product management consulting
software engineering subscribe and if you have any questions leave them in the comment section below